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Taiwan young people losing appetite for China fight amid military cuts, improving relations
By Associated Press, Published: December 1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-young-people-losing-appetite-for-china-fight-amid-military-cuts-improving-relations/2011/11/30/gIQAI0EkEO_story.html
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Signs that Taiwan was preparing for possible war with China were once everywhere: huge posters calling for liberating the Chinese mainland and lengthy school yard drills training students to fight the communist enemy. That culture has changed so much since a detente process began in the 1990s that many young Taiwanese are now unwilling to take up arms to protect the island’s self-rule.
A survey published this week by Taiwan’s Commonwealth Magazine appears to confirm that Taiwan’s process of demilitarization is rapidly gaining steam. Based on a sample of students aged 12 to 17, it found only 38.7 percent would be ready to see either themselves or a family member fight if a new war broke out, while 44.3 percent would not. The remainder had no opinion.
The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the survey, saying it had no information on the way it was conducted. Commonwealth said it was carried out by mail between Oct. 17 and Nov. 4 and that the 3,715 responses represented a 74 percent return on the 5,054 questionnaires it sent.
Aside from shining a light on the huge changes taking place in Taiwanese society, the Commonwealth findings offer a big challenge for Taiwan’s military, which is already struggling with a constricted defense budget and U.S. reluctance to supply it with the weapons it says it needs to cope with China’s ambitious military modernization.
While Taiwan plans to end its current system of 11-month mandatory male conscription in favor of an all-volunteer force by 2014, a lack of funds and difficulty in attracting recruits are almost certain to push back that date by several years. That will leave the military dependent on large numbers of apparently unmotivated draftees.
Tamkang University military specialist Alexander Huang says the negative trends in volunteer force recruiting are especially worrying.
“I have been asking university students for several years now whether they would be willing to join an all-volunteer military,” he said. “I get positive responses from no more than 2 or 3 percent.”
Taiwan, which split from China amid civil war in 1949, has been engaged in a gradual program of detente with the mainland over the past two decades, culminating in Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s efforts to bring the sides ever closer together, mostly through a series of ambitious commercial initiatives.
But China has never renounced its long-standing threat to take over the island by force should it move to make its de facto independence permanent, or delay unification indefinitely. It currently aims an estimated 1,500 missiles at Taiwanese targets, and conducts frequent drills simulating an invasion across the 100-mile- (160-kilometer-) wide Taiwan Strait.
Despite the threats and the missiles, present-day Taiwan is a remarkably un-militarized society, with few signs of a military presence outside of Defense Ministry facilities. Uniformed military personnel are rarely seen in major cities, and while highlights of annual war games are shown on television to boost morale, few people outside of the armed forces take them very seriously.
Both Huang and Lin ascribe the lack of military consciousness to the rapid improvement in relations with China, which they said made it difficult for Taiwanese young people to conceive of the possibility of a return to the tension of the past.
“The atmosphere in cross-strait relations is so relaxed now,” Huang said. “It’s difficult to envision a war.”
Additional factors Huang cited for low military consciousness include the aversion of Taiwanese young people to military-style discipline and their belief that a military framework is incompatible with the “cyber lifestyle” many of them covet.
Fifteen-year-old Taipei high school student Gao Yu-kai explained his own lack of willingness to fight an invading Chinese force by saying it made no sense to participate in a losing effort.
“We could never beat China,” he said. “They are just too strong.”
The pessimism of Taipei students comes against the background of the continuing drop in defense expenditures as a proportion of GDP, and Taiwan’s recent failure to convince the United States — its most important strategic partner — to sell it new F-16 jet fighters, for years the leading item on Taiwan’s military wish list.
Those developments — and Ma’s 2009 announcement that Taiwan’s military should henceforth see disaster relief as its main priority — appear to have done much to deflate whatever military consciousness survived the beginning of detente with the mainland in the early 1990s and the development of a relationship that now includes the arrival of thousands of Chinese tourists in Taiwan everyday and the maintenance of hundreds of weekly flights across the Taiwan Strait.
美联社：台湾的年轻人在军费削减、两岸关系改善的背景下失去与大陆作战的斗志
核心提示：两岸关系现在这么缓和，年轻人又不喜欢军队式的管理，还有人认为中国不可战胜……台湾的年轻人仍然要服强制性的兵役，但他们无心恋战。
本文由"译者"志愿者翻译并校对http://yyyyiiii.blogspot.com/
台北，台湾――曾几何时，准备与中国开战的迹象在台湾处处可见：巨幅海报号召解放中国大陆、在校园操场上演练学生与共产党敌人的作战技能。然而，自从20世纪90年代改善关系的进程拉开后，这种风气大大消退，如今许多台湾年轻人已经不愿意拿起武器保卫台湾岛的自治了。
台湾《天下》杂志近期刊登的一项调查结果似乎证明：台湾的去军事化进程的势头正快速赢得主流地位。根据对12-17岁学生的抽样调查，结果显示，一旦爆发战争，只有38.7%的学生准备亲自或让亲人参加战斗，而44.3%的学生不愿意这么做，其他则没有表态。
前国防部副部长林中斌说："近年来愿意上战场的台湾人的数目不用说是在急剧下降的。杂志中[的调查]说赞成防御的人数如此之高，都令我吃惊。"
国防部长对调查结果不予置评，说不了解调查的方式。《天下》杂志说，调查是在10月17日至11月4日期间通过邮件进行的，共发出5054份调查问卷，收到3715份回复，回收率为74%
《天下》杂志的调查结果不仅揭示了台湾社会正在发生的巨大变化，而且给台湾军方提出了严峻的挑战，由于国防预算压缩，再加上美国不愿提供据说要应对中国雄心勃勃的军事现代化需要的军备，台湾军方已经在苦苦挣扎之中了。
台湾计划到2014年终止目前11个月的强制性的男子兵役制度，转而实行全志愿军制度，但由于缺乏资金，并且在招兵方面存在困难，所以兵役制度的转变几乎肯定会被延后数年。这样一来，军方只有指望大量不大愿意从军的入伍者。
淡江大学的军事专家亚历山大・黄（Alexander Huang）说，志愿兵招兵出现的这股消极趋势尤其令人担忧。
他说："这几年来我经常问大学生是否愿意参加全志愿军，得到的肯定答复不超过2-3%。"
台湾是1949年内战期间从中国分裂出去的，在过去20年里逐渐实施了与大陆改善关系的计划，特别是台湾总统马英九致力于把双方拉得更近一些，而这主要是通过一系列雄心勃勃的商业计划。
但是中国从未放弃过旷日持久的威胁，例如，如果台湾想要谋求永久独立，或者想要无限推迟统一的话，中国就会以武力占领台湾。目前，北京部署了约1500枚导弹瞄准台湾目标，并频繁举行演习模拟穿过100英里的台湾海峡，攻占台湾的情景。
尽管如此，如今的台湾是一个去军事化非常明显的社会，除了国防部下辖的设施外，几乎没有军事力量存在的痕迹。在大城市很少能看到穿制服的军事人员，虽然为了鼓励士气，电视上会播放每年军演的亮点，但除了军人以外，几乎没有人把那些军演当回事。
黄和林中斌都把台湾缺乏军事意识归咎于与中国关系的迅速改善，他们说，这让台湾的年轻人难以想象两岸关系重回曾经的紧张。
黄说："现在两岸关系如此缓和，很难想象出现战争的场景。"
黄认为，导致军事意识淡漠还有其他因素，包括台湾年轻人反感军队风格的纪律要求，以及他们认为军事作风和许多人渴望的"网络生活方式"是格格不入的。
15岁的台北高中生高雨凯（音）对与攻台的中国军队缺乏积极性，他这样解释说，参与必败之战是毫无意义的。
他说："我们绝对不可能打败中国，他们太强大了。"
当前，台湾的国防开支占GDP的比重不断下滑。前不久，台湾试图说服美国――其最重要的战略伙伴――出手新式的F-16战斗机，也以失败告终。这种飞机多年来一直占据台湾军购医院清单之首。在这种背景下，台北学生们的消极也就不难解释了。
这些情况再加上马英九在2009年宣布台湾军方以后应当把救灾视为主要任务――似乎大大冲淡了20世纪90年代与大陆开始缓和关系时保有的军事意识。随着每天有数千大陆游客来台，每周穿越台湾海峡的航班都在数百架次，军事意识已经被大大冲淡。
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